


Cabin Fever

by JoJo



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Comment Fic, Fever, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2011-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezra's condition wasn't a problem until the weather caused them to hole up in an isolated cabin...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cabin Fever

**Author's Note:**

> written to a prompt left by Draycevixen at the [Running Hot Multifandom Fever Fic meme](http://ariadnes-string.livejournal.com/81197.html)

Vin was surprised that it made no difference to him. That he didn’t feel any the less twisted up just because it was nobody’s fault but Ezra’s own.

Lord knows they’d told the fool often enough (some more forcefully than others) not to even think about getting into a game in Vista City. He and Vin were there to escort a local miscreant back to his own jail and then to come right home. Larabee had even jabbed a finger, not quite making contact with Ezra’s brocaded chest but close enough.

But in spite of the dire warnings (and damn yes, probably because of them), Ezra had gone right ahead. And it had been as predictable as day turning into night. He’d won, handsomely, annoyed the heck out of some barrel-chested loudmouth with stupid friends, and done it in a fashion that left his opponents undecided as to whether he’d prevailed through sheer skill or brazen duplicity. The loudmouth thought he knew, of course.

Too many hours passed before Vin even realized. If he hadn’t been needed elsewhere, he wouldn’t have found him until even more too late than it already was.

Jumped somewhere between the Livery and the saloon, Ezra had been overwhelmed, robbed, beaten half senseless and left crawling feebly in the poisonous stream of effluent and mud that was running through the town storm ditch.

He was bruised, filthy and repetitively insistent they shouldn’t stay another moment in this benighted hellhole. That was about as much as Vin could ascertain before bundling him on his horse and heading out into the coming storm. They’d argued about it at the first stop. About why it had happened, whether the storm was worth worrying about and then whether they should hole up in a jumble of broken stones and boards that Vin hunted down and which Ezra refused to term a cabin.

“It’s a shack at best, Mr. Tanner. A miserable, infested hovel if we are to be strictly accurate.”

“Fine, you want to walk home in the goddamn rain, go ahead. I’m beddin’ down in this cabin.”

The arguments carried on inside. Vin had gone silent in the end and Ezra was maybe talking to himself when he suddenly muttered, “Oh for mercy’s sake, give it a rest”, folded to his knees with a thump and was miserably sick on the floor.

And in the last few hours since Vin made it back from sheltering the horses and found him adrift on their piled bedrolls, the fever had begun to climb. Vin already felt like he’d lived several too many lifetimes watching tremors rock Ezra down to his bones.

*

Outside the rain lashed down, the wind bending trees and shaking the foundations. It was only three o’clock in the afternoon and the sky was black. Water ran in through the holes in the roof and walls. Vin didn’t have time to plug any of the gaps or try and get some dry and warmth into the place. Too busy holding Ezra’s head still and cursing Larabee’s perverse decision to send them further than the end of the road together.

Leastways there was water to do some cleaning up and cooling down. After a few hours the wind fell back to a distant whine and the rain to a steady drumming. Vin peeled Ezra out of his soiled and muddy clothes and rolled him in the one blanket that wasn’t damp. The skin of Ezra’s chest and stomach was dry and hot under his hands, worse even than his forehead.

Ezra shifted at the touch, lifted his trembling head. “Clarence?”

“It’s me, Ez,” Vin said, not liking the glassy confusion in the eyes and then, because Ezra could be so damn critical, “I’m doin’ my best.”

“Clarence,” Ezra said again and his head clunked back on the floor.

“Ah hell.”

By the time the rain had faded to a faint patter and then to nothing, it was dark outside. Proper dark. When Vin went out to make sure the horses hadn’t been damaged by the storm or each other the wind was still strong enough to whip the hair into his eyes. He found some soggy feed, and then squelched back through the pitchy night and shut the door against it all.

The inside of the cabin was splashed in dark orange light from a couple of rusty lanterns, the candle remains guttering and gasping for air. Vin squatted down next to the mound by the waterlogged stove, rubbed his hands dry on the blanket and then tested for fever again.

Ezra started at the touch once more, eyes snapping open.

“Clarence?”

“Nope, still me.”

One hand came up and pressed to Vin’s cheek, as if trying to make certain. The burning eyes stared right through him and then the hand slid down his jaw. Fingertips touched hot against his lips. Vin didn’t move. He didn’t so much as breathe for a few seconds. Instead of react, like his instincts told him to, Vin remained quite still, heart hammering a little forcefully as a thumb brushed his lower lip and then fell away.

Ezra’s eyes slid shut. Within a few moments he’d resumed his fretful tossing. And then the real shivering began, like he was chilled all of a sudden, even though the poison fever still raged.

There was maybe enough dry fuel for the stove to burn a couple hours. Vin set it best he could, sat cross-legged by the bedrolls chewing jerky and wondering who Clarence was. Not a family member he was pretty sure. Man don’t speak to kin like that, fever or no fever. Don’t touch kin like that.

*

What the hell.

He warmed Ezra best he could. Dried another blanket off, tucked it round his shoulders. Then wrapped himself right around him for an hour or two, one hand laid on the back of his neck so he’d feel when the fever ratcheted up again. And then he cooled him down, wiping across his chest from side to side, the tender inside of his arms, all down his thighs and shins, right to his fine-boned feet.

Still hot as coals but quiet. Vin would have figured Ezra on having a whole lot more to say for himself while delirious. Larabee fought with all his being when he was this sick, and Buck... hell, Buck you practically had to sit on. Ezra, contrary to every expectation Vin had of him, seemed to have nothing much to say for himself in this state.

“Gettin’ to know you real well here, pard,” he said once and then felt kind of strange for it. He put aside the cloths for a spell, just soothed some hair back from Ezra’s forehead and then sat and looked at him. The candles had long burned down and the fading firelight was all they had. That and the first gray fingers of dawn easing in through the fragile shutters.

Ezra had slipped into a feverish doze, head lolled to one side, mouth slightly open.

Vin tested once again, automatic, already knowing the skin would feel cooler than an hour or so ago but not yet cool enough he could relax. Ezra’s face felt silky-slick under his knuckles, lips soft and damp, and abruptly Vin pulled his hand away.

Aw damn.

What in the hell was he thinking? A worrisome night of no sleep and no food was scrambling his brain, that was what it was. Giving him downright strange and unwelcome thoughts.

Like how it might be real nice to lick along the curve of that rosy bottom lip. Push his tongue in to find Ezra’s. Maybe suck on it a little....

Feeling sick to his stomach, Vin uncurled his stiff and unresponsive limbs, rose to his feet.

*

He’d go check the horses again. Search for more fuel. Let Ezra sleep off the rest of that damn mud best he could.

“Ya know it was your own fault don’t you,” Vin said in order to start a conversation in the middle of the morning. Ezra was sitting up by then. He’d looked at Vin rather strangely when he’d finally come round but hadn’t said hardly a word. Now he was contemplating the remains of the jerky and yesterday’s biscuit with dislike. “Gettin’ beat up and swallowin’ all that crap.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tanner.” Ezra’s voice was scratchy. He spoke carefully, politely. “I am well aware of the circumstances that brought me under your... care.”

“And ya feelin’ better now?”

“Poorer,” Ezra observed wryly and managed a faint smile. “And probably thinner. But yes, I think everything will be back to normal before very long.”

Not one chance in hell of that, Vin thought grimly.

Before too long they’d be dragging their empty bellies back to town, checking in with Nathan who’d cluck over Ezra before giving him a lecture. They’d be taking up regulatory duties once again. He and Chris would be back in their comfortable routine and Ezra would have one and a half eyes on some new money-making scheme. Everything back to normal.

But one part of it was not going to be like before. The strangely unsettling feeling that had taken root in Vin’s gut did not suggest normality in any way he understood it. He knew already what it would be like.

Figuring Ezra was a damn straight shot and a man to trust at his back. A downright sneaky, unrepentant sonofabitch with more frills than any man had a right to and his priorities in a tangle that’d make you grit your teeth. Same as ever.

But damn. Even while he was rolling his eyes and shaking his head, Vin guessed he’d be doing something else as well.

Stealing a puzzled glance at those pretty lips every so often maybe.

And knowing Ezra was looking at his.


End file.
